Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know I'm not the only MP in this place who helps constituents out with telecommunications complaints. It is particularly noticeable in my community, which is peri-urban. We have some quite remote areas and we have rural areas. We have regional aspects as well as the more suburban areas. What this means is that telecommunications are absolutely vital from a safety and productivity perspective. I take very seriously complaints that are made when someone's service is not up to scratch—and, unfortunately, there are a large number of them. I think it's particularly noticeable, as this would be the largest area of complaints and advocacy that my office receives that is not part of a government department, keeping in mind that none of the telcos are owned by government.

We work really hard to try and resolve issues that the people in Macquarie face. They might be service issues or they might be infrastructure issues. It might be something that takes a really long time to resolve, like getting in more mobile phone towers and dealing with those black spots. It might be a decline in mobile quality. I'm very mindful that right now we're trying to support people who are suffering a decline in mobile coverage. It might be a landline issue, and, in places where mobile coverage is still patchy, I welcome the fact that that will be addressed by our obligation on the telcos to provide a universal outdoor mobile texting and voice data service. In the meantime, landlines, in our floods and fires, are an essential piece of communication. It might be that that landline is down—that the wires are lying low on the side of the road. All those sorts of telco issues are things we come across probably on a weekly basis.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of the complaints that we tackle come from Telstra customers because Telstra is the big legacy network. Given the nature of Macquarie, where landlines are still more widely used in the outlying areas, they are the holder of those. But other telecommunications companies come onto our radar frequently as well. Many of the cases we deal with are quite individual and specific in their nature, but there are also plenty of examples where people are experiencing a pattern of bad behaviour that is impacting large numbers of customers.

One of the challenges under the current laws that we have identified, being in government, is that the Australian Communications and Media Authority, ACMA, is hamstrung where there are breaches that affect a large number of customers. Currently, ACMA can't take direct action against a telecommunications company without first issuing an order to comply. It's only if the compliance breach continues that ACMA can take action. What this means is that, even if penalties are applied, they are seen as being the cost of doing business. In other words, it's not significant enough to the telco for them to worry too much about that behaviour beforehand and, more importantly, it's not significant enough to get them to prevent these things from happening in the first place.

That's where this legislation comes in. The Albanese government is putting Australian consumers right at the heart of the telecommunications industry. Rather than being a bit of a nuisance to the system, we're saying, 'This is why we have it.' We want to ensure that every Australian has access to reliable, high-quality and affordable telecommunications services, supported by a strong regulatory and consumer safeguards framework. That's why we've been actively reviewing the consumer protection framework and making appropriate changes.

I think it goes without saying that staying connected is now an absolutely essential part of everyday life. I do still have parts of my electorate where I go where there is no mobile coverage. I relish those moments. It's fine when things are going well, but when natural disasters hit—and they can be the areas where those disasters really take a toll—it is now critical that those telco services are there for everyone, whether it's people facing that vulnerable natural disaster experience, people living in the regions, First Nations Australians or those who rely on connectivity to support their families and provide services to their community.

I was very pleased in this term of parliament to be part of an inquiry that looked at mobile phone coverage around the country and to really understand the impacts it has on people, on businesses and on tourism—on all the different aspects of communities' lives—and why it is so important that we fill those gaps in coverage. We want to ensure that the telco industry is working for Australians, that the best consumer safeguards are in place and that there's strong, clear recourse if telcos do the wrong thing. We know these telecommunications services should be enriching people's lives, not causing them inconvenience, frustration or even harm.

So, in terms of the size of the problem, I just want to paint a picture of that. The latest data from the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, the TIO, shows that complaints progressed to the TIO increased 13 per cent between October and December last year, compared to the previous quarter. There was also a nearly 13 per cent increase in small business complaints. That follows four consecutive quarters of decline and a spike in 3G shutdown complaints in October and November last year.

From a small business perspective, it's not just an inconvenience. It's your viability as a business that's impacted when your phones are not working the way that you've been led to believe they will. As someone who had a small business for a quarter of a century, for my clients not to be able to contact me and to have to find some other way to reach me would have been an horrific experience for me as a small business operator. Every phone call was vital to my business.

There have also been two regular high-profile incidents in the telco sector, including significant service outage and claims of irresponsible selling practices that have really highlighted the problems and the limitations of the existing legislation.

Our solution is partly this bill. Introducing legislation to better equip the regulator, ACMA, with the tools and powers it needs to protect telco consumers and hold companies to account if they do the wrong thing is a really necessary step. We're also establishing new industry rules, prioritising keeping customers connected, greater promotion of financial hardship assistance and requiring telcos to offer assistance, such as payment plans. This is particularly important in the period we've had where the cost of living has put pressure on people. We're also developing requirements for the telcos to ensure they better support customers experiencing domestic, family and sexual violence. We're revising the Telecommunications Consumer Protections Code and improving communications services for people with a disability. That's the whole suite of things that will make a difference here.

In terms of enhancing consumer safeguards in this legislation, this will give effect to a number of significant reforms to boost those enforcement powers and penalties available to ACMA. They help ensure that the ACMA is an empowered and effective regulator, and that appropriate incentive structures are in place to drive better behaviour by the telecommunications companies. Nobody wants to see an industry where those penalties are literally the cost of doing business that I referred to earlier. The proposed changes let ACMA take direct and immediate enforcement action against telecommunication providers who have breached their obligations to consumers under industry codes. It removes the two-step process where you get a warning and ACMA must first issue a direction to comply to the offending telcos, no matter how significant the breach, and then only take further action if noncompliance continues. It allows instead for a much quicker process and more appropriate action in response to breaches, by immediately addressing consumer harm and holding those telcos to account.

The bill also significantly increases the maximum general penalty for breaches of industry codes and standards from a quarter of a million dollars to about $10 million. It's a much bigger stick. Further changes allow penalties for codes, standards and determinations to be based on the value of the benefit obtained from the offending conduct or the turnover of the relevant provider, allowing for penalties even greater than $10 million in certain circumstances. This penalty framework incentivises industry compliance and better aligns with those in other relevant sectors, like energy and banking, under the Australian Consumer Law.

To ensure the ACMA has a range of effective enforcement tools at its disposal, an additional change is going to expand and clarify the government's ability to increase infringement notice penalty amounts that the ACMA can issue for all applicable breaches, including consumer protection rules. This bill also increases the visibility of providers operating in the market, especially telecommunications retailers, through the establishment of a carrier service provider registration scheme, which means that no longer will there be hidden providers who are operating without anyone being aware of what they're doing. It would allow ACMA to stop a carrier service provider operating when they've been found to pose an unacceptable risk to consumers or to have caused significant consumer harm. The significant reforms included in this bill will better equip the regulator with the tools and powers it needs to protect telco customers and to hold providers to account.

I want to point out that the reforms in this bill, particularly when taken together with the other measures, really strengthen consumer protection and have received strong support from a number of stakeholders, including the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, the Consumer Action Law Centre, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, the ACMA itself and the Communications Alliance. It's important to know that the sector, particularly those in the sector who currently deal with the consequences of poor behaviour by telcos, are backing this bill. The Consumer Action Law Centre said:

Similar consequences and high penalty amounts are already in place in other sectors that provide essential services such as in energy, water and banking. The telco industry has benefited from a very light enforcement regime over the years, which has permitted continued poor practices. The consumer regulator the ACCC commenced court action late last year against Optus for its alleged unconscionable selling of phone products to hundreds of vulnerable customers, even though Telstra was fined $50m for similar conduct years earlier.

That helps you understand some of the rationale and why there is such support for this. A body that I know well, ACCAN, which is the peak national communications consumer body, has welcomed this legislation as a vital step forward for consumers who have too often been left in the lurch by failures of a regulatory framework that's been largely voluntary, too weak and poorly enforced.

This is common to many of the things that we have done in this term of parliament; we have looked at rules that have been neglected for a decade. No-one's bothered looking at them. They haven't served a purpose. They haven't been fit for purpose. They haven't been fit for the 21st century and how things have changed. What we're seeing in this legislation is an update to take into account not only how the world has changed but also how consumer expectations have changed, as they should. I'm very pleased that we are doing something that backs consumers and allows people to stand up to telecommunications companies, be given a fair deal and seek a remedy when they are not given a fair deal. I commend this bill to the House.

Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to commend the member for Macquarie, particularly for the last points of her contribution where she outlines some of the steps that this government has taken in less than a term to fix up the mess that was left behind for us, particularly in protecting consumer rights. In this first term of the Albanese Labor government, we've taken action on payday lenders to make them operate in a much fairer way to protect consumers. We have regulated buy-now pay-later and made it a credit product when it wasn't. We're taking action on debit card surcharges and working with the RBA to ensure that Australians don't get pinged for using digital payments, particularly when it's their own money. The action on scams led by the Assistant Treasurer is world-leading stuff.

This is stuff that good governments should prioritise, not new governments when they come in to clean up the mess. This is about good, ongoing governance. Time and time again, across portfolio after portfolio, you see that the former government really dropped the ball, particularly in the latter end of their time in government. All these issues existed and were around for a long time. They had been brought to the attention of the Morrison government, the Turnbull government and the Abbott government before that, and they weren't being addressed. They were not being addressed.

In our first term in government, we've done plenty of that because that is what Labor governments do—we listen and we reform. And that's what today's Telecommunications Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2025 is about. It's about protecting consumers, it's about listening to Australians who have had some really horrible experiences with some telecommunications providers, and it's about ensuring that there's a minimum standard for consumers for an essential service, because, in 2025, remaining connected is essential. It's essential for how we live, for how we work and for how we participate in society. As such, it's only fair that Australians should rely on our telecommunications sector to serve them and not to continually short-change them. That's what this bill is about. It's about shifting power back to the people and it's about ensuring that those who keep us connected are held to better standards of responsibility and care. It's about modernising our laws so that rules protect every Australian and that these big companies are held to account.

For too long, some telecommunications providers—not all of them but some of them—have treated compliance like an optional extra. For too long, penalties for doing the wrong thing were so light that they could have simply been factored in as a cost of doing business rather than act as a disincentive. This amendment ends that. It marks a line in the sand by giving consumers the stronger protections that they deserve, and it gives the regulator in charge of compliance here, ACMA—the Australian Communications and Media Authority—the teeth it needs to bite back and to take action when things inevitably go wrong.

One of the most significant changes in this legislation is a shift in how these consumer protections are enforced. Until now, if a telco breached its obligations under the industry code, ACMA had to jump through hoops and go through a number of steps to get it rectified. Step 1 was to issue a formal direction to comply, step 2 was to wait and hope that the company listened, and step 3 was to take further action, but only if they failed again. It was delayed justice that disempowered the regulators and, all in all, it left consumers waiting for justice. This bill fixes that. It empowers ACMA to act immediately and decisively when there's an alleged breach, and, if providers breach the rules, they will know they will face the consequences swiftly and appropriately. It doesn't just help regulators; it helps consumers, who expect their complaints to be taken seriously. It helps the honest providers out there who do the right thing, because they're tired of being undercut by some in the industry who don't do the right thing. It helps build a stronger and fairer telecommunications sector for everyone.

These reforms are a response to repeated, well-documented failures in the telecommunications industry—failures that leave our customers frustrated, financially hurt and, in many cases, really vulnerable. Just last year we saw the ACCC commence proceedings against a major telecommunications provider in Australia for engaging in unconscionable conduct in convention of the law. It was reported that sales staff signed people up to multiple postpaid mobile plans they didn't want, couldn't afford and, in some cases, didn't even understand due to language barriers. The consequences were that families and consumers suffered and racked up thousands of dollars in debt for services they didn't consent to and customers were left confused, disempowered and unable to access basic remedies.

This legislation also tackles other forms of poor behaviour that have become too common—for example, ongoing billing for cancelled services, failure to adequately assist people in financial hardship and those unresolved complaints, which we've all been party to, that just drag on for weeks or sometimes months. These aren't just minor oversights; they're signs of an existing culture that doesn't put the consumer at the heart of some of the service providers, and this bill will change that.

Under this bill, if a provider continues to bill customers for services they never receive and, say, gains a $1 million benefit, we propose to increase the fine so that they have to pay $3 million, three times more than what their benefit is, a true disincentive to continually making these poor decisions. That's because we're cracking down on enforcement and introducing these tougher fines. Penalties can now reach up to $10 million or three times the benefit gained or 30 per cent of the company's turnover, whichever is greater. That's a message to these providers: treat your customers fairly or you will be held to account. It means that big telcos won't be able to shrug off these smaller penalties, which are only in the hundreds of thousands of dollars currently, as pocket change. It means that the punishment will fit the crime. And it means that we are aligning telco penalties with those in other major sectors, other essential service provisions, like energy and banking, and other consumer law protections. Telecommunications, as I've said and as other speakers have said, are essential services, and they need to be held to the same level as other essential services.

Another crucial reform in this bill is the establishment of a new carriage service provider registration scheme. This is about transparency and visibility. It's about empowering the ACMA to act before the harm is done, not in response to complaints or breaches. Right now, there is limited oversight over who operates in the telecommunications space. That makes it harder for regulators to spots risks before they become major problems. Under the new scheme, every carriage service provider must register with the ACMA. That means the regulator will know exactly who is operating in the market. It also means that, if a provider is found to pose an unacceptable risk to consumers or if it has repeatedly caused significant harm, it can just be stopped from operating altogether—not fined or not warned but stopped. This is vital in a sector where some small operators may try to fly under the radar, avoid scrutiny, take advantage of their customers and target vulnerable customers. A shady provider with no track record, no safeguards, no accountability should not be allowed to play with such an essential service and people's livelihoods. The registration scheme gives us transparency but also gives the regulator the power to say no and to get on top of these issues early.

We're also expanding and clarifying the authority to increase the infringement notice penalties. The current provisions are a bit messy and need to be cleaned up. In some cases they don't even allow for the minister to increase penalties for more important obligations. This bill cleans that up as well. It gives the government the ability to respond to changing market conditions, consumer needs and emerging risks with clarity and consistency. Our regulators need to have that flexibility because they shouldn't have to operate with one hand tied behind their backs. All our regulators should have a full suite of modern and flexible enforcement tools, and that's what this bill seeks to do in the telecommunications industry.

As with all our reforms, we take them seriously and we've consulted widely. We've listened carefully, and the support for this bill is broad and deep. The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network supports the bill. The Consumer Action Law Centre supports the bill. The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman and Australian Communications and Media Authority support it as well. The Communications Alliance, which is the peak body for the telco industry, supports it too. That's telling; it's telling that they do. It tells me and it tells the public that this reform is measured but that it's also necessary. It balances the feedback received from industry but also the really important feedback of consumer advocacy groups and consumers. It lifts the standard for everyone.

This bill, obviously, is not about punishing the entire sector. It's about weeding out the worst offenders, incentivising compliance across the sector and building a telecommunications environment that works for all Australians, both in the city and in the bush. It builds on the growing legacy of telco reform from this government. We've implemented new rules to support customers experiencing financial hardship. We've directed the ACMA to create new protections for those experiencing domestic, sexual and family violence, because your safety should never depend on your phone plan. Now we're delivering a comprehensive package to reform how we enforce consumer protections and hold providers to account.

This is the culmination of a very careful review of active stakeholder engagement and of decisive leadership. I pay credit to the minister, who has done an extraordinary amount of work in one term to reform these really important parts of her portfolio. We don't just talk about putting consumers first or at the forefront of our reforms; we legislate it too. This legislation is for every Australian that is connected by their phone or tablet. It's for a single mum in Gladesville trying to contact Centrelink or a small-business owner in Lane Cove who needs to be online all the time. It's for the elderly couple in Eastwood who need to use telehealth for their care. It's for every worker, parent and grandparent who relies on their phone or internet connection to stay informed, stay connected and engage in modern society. It's for people who cannot afford for the system to break down or can't afford for their complaints not to be dealt with. It's for the people who don't have the hours to sit on the phone on hold and fight long battles with telecommunication companies who sometimes don't do the best by their consumers. It's for people who just want a fair deal and decent service. This is another step in putting consumers at the heart of regulation that we do, and I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.